


Factors of Your Touch

by H4T08



Series: Behind the Door [5]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s01e10 Prime Factors, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Light Angst, POV First Person, curse words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/H4T08/pseuds/H4T08
Summary: Seconds, months, years could have passed and I would not have known. Our lips, so close that I can taste the wild hunger that pulses between us, slowly pulls closer as desire edges its sultry path along my veins.Then, as if Heaven itself blissfully opened, the softness of his lips takes mine for one fleeting moment when—





	Factors of Your Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the delay. After reading this, I decided to change the whole point of view to first person. I hope it was a change for the better! 
> 
> Just a heads up, there is quite a bit of cursing.
> 
> Post-ep for "Prime Factors".

** Janeway POV **

Shit! Throwing down the latest PADD that I **have** to read, I look over to the chronometer. The bright red numbers appear bleary and I blink several times to adjust my tired eyes.

"This is fucking useless!" I suddenly look towards the closed door leading off to the bridge as my body instinctively shoves a steel rod up my spine. A breathless sigh deflates my chest as I shake from my paranoia. I don't want the crew to know the massive bank of curse words in my repertoire, you know being the Captain and all. Only those close to me know that I can cuss along with the best badass Klingon in the Empire. Even Tuvok has learned to “turn off” his telepathy when the first stream of ‘fucks’, ‘shits’, and ‘twats’ rolls through my brain. I just hope the other telepaths – who are only Vulcan – has learned to turn a blind, holier-than-art-thou ear as well.

Whatever. Staring at the time once again, I reason that I should have been off duty two hours ago, however, with all that has happened still gnawing on my damn nerves, I decided to be productive. There is no better place but in a room that is bright as hell and with the most uncomfortable furniture ever designed. I mean, seriously, who the fuck puts stairs in the Captain’s Ready Room? I have caught myself from tripping so many times anyone would think of me as a klutz!

Yet, despite the ugly couch and the replicator from hell, it's better than lying awake in my lonely bed.

Taking a deep breath, I look towards the ceiling for guidance as the thought of going to a certain Native American’s quarters comes to my mind. Not the first time, but I always tell myself that it will be the last. “Bullshit,” I mumble under my breath.

But it has to be, especially after what had happened last time I was there. I'm not ready to stir up that murky shit soup of emotions that comes with being so close to him. But, damn, even after all these weeks, I can still feel his soft lips on mine. Those lips, which have made a staring role in my fantasies, has helped me fall over the edge when it had seemed to high to conquer.

I try, at least.

After our **one** dinner, I did my best to ignore his gorgeous smile and his easy sense of camaraderie, but that all went to hell in a hand basket when we had met Telek R’Mor. I was determined to grieve in the sanctuary of my own little hell hole, but the damn bastard with his delicious dimples had other plans. I tried to kick him out, but I was at my weakest. I needed to be held and comforted and somehow he knew that. It wasn't until early morning when he woke me up, that my well constructed resolve into ignoring whatever it was that was pulling us together crumpled around me in pieces. With the heat from his hand clinging to me like sweat from a steamy afternoon, I asked him to stay with me and to hold me in a way that would have me screaming for more.

He declined, saying that it wouldn't be him that I would see. After many hour of calling him every disgusting name I could think of along with trying to scrub the imprint of his palm from my breast, I had finally admitted to myself that he was right. I would have closed my eyes and pretended that it was someone else. It would have hurt him, dearly.

Yet, his cutting denial to comfort me in the form of a quick, mindless fuck left me aching for a man’s touch. To the point of thinking of different ways to sedate this ridiculous need without anyone else finding out. My vibrator helped for like a minute, but that can never replace the satisfaction of a man’s weight lying on my chest. I thought about programming a man on the holodeck, but I tabled that idea for when I'm really desperate. I then became desperate and thought about fucking one of Tom Paris’s characters from that French bar. I even went as far as activating the damn program, but then I chickened out the last second. I would never get over the thought of someone, either Starfleet or Maquis, catching me fucking a hologram. After that, I merrily went back to using my vibrator. Ugh!

Then came Gath. The fucking petaQ was pompous to the point of arrogance at his ability to create pleasure, yet, I figured I could tune it out if he was able to perform as he had promised. I was desperate. I was about to seal the deal when Ensign Kim came to me with talk of Space Folding Technology. After that, any thoughts of pleasure with Gath fell to the wayside as I tried to diplomatically acquire the technology to get us closer to home. He refused, of course, wanting to just ‘pleasure’ me enough to get his own rocks off. Discouraged that I had, once again, failed my crew at getting us closer to home and had, once again, failed to find a man’s touch to help alleviate my bitter loneliness, I ordered Tom Paris to get us the hell away from that piece of shit planet as fast as possible. Only we weren't able to go anywhere.

After an hour of confessions from all crew members – including a surprising one from my most trusted friend – as to how we suffered an engine failure, I now find myself with a massive headache and the need to simply forget about the day's events.

The only man who can pull off a facial tattoo comes freshly into my mind. I shouldn't think about him. I shouldn't. Not when everything is incredibly fucked up right now. I mean, Tuvok – **Tuvok!** – disobeyed a direct order and tried to blame it on logic. If that isn't fucked up, then I don't know what it. Sitting up and grabbing the data PADD, I resolve to finish this latest report. And not think about him. Or his lips. Or his cute dimples… hmmm, I wonder where he is at.

GAH! Damn it! I really need to buck up my bitch face. Seriously, how does this man, who turned his back on the Federation, who is supposed to be my damn enemy, affect me in a way that should make me feel embarrassed.

Because, a small angelic voice inside my brain explains, his reasons were justifiable. Not to mention, the Cardassians are horrible people and, quite frankly, his dimples are to die for. I'm a sucker for them – the dimples, not Cardassians.

Throwing down the PADD for the last time, I reason that I do have to inform him of what had happened in Engineering.

Checking the chronometer again, I shake my head, it's far too late to bother him. Still… “Computer, location of Commander Chakotay?” I am going to hell!

“Commander Chakotay is located in his quarters.”

Biting my bottom lip, I then hurriedly ask, “Is he asleep?”

“Negative.” More like skipping off to hell.

Abruptly standing, I clip my thigh against the corner of the desk, which thankfully slows me down. I grip my rapidly bruising leg and lean against my stupid desk as the sheer thrill of seeing him simmers to a low boil. I really need to get a grip on myself. I'm acting like… like Phoebe. I need to act like a Captain. Rolling my head around and stretching my tired muscles until they have loosen, I calmly make my way towards the door.

Okay, I'm just going to go, apprise him of the situation, and then leave. That's it! Annnd, steal a few glances at those dimples.

Geez, here I am running at a full sprint off to hell. “Goodnight, Mr. Tuvok,” I simply call out as I make my way to the turbolift.

"Goodnight, Captain.” Though he would deny it with every logical thought of his being until the day he dies, I could have sworn that I heard a hint of shame along his lips. I was hard on him, but it was necessary. I sag against the wall. It was the second hardest thing I had to do since being stranded here. The first will always be that order, the first order I gave as the Captain of both crews. I need to be able to trust him and for him to not hide behind logic when I make a decision he doesn't agree with. When the time is right and he needs to question a decision I have made, I just hope that this time he will come to me personally instead of going behind my back.

That was… that was the part that hurt the worst.

Stabbing my temple with the pad of my finger, I have to think of something – anything – else. Feeling the the rush of the turbolift opening, I peek out from around the door to find the corridor empty. Whew! Turning towards his quarters, which are next to mine, I briefly wonder why the designers had decided to put the Captain and the First Officer quarters next to each other. I mean, grant it, we are located under the bridge, which makes it just as heavily protected, but – I need to stop rambling in my thoughts!

I'm just… I'm just a little nervous. Checking over my shoulder for the thousandth time in about seven seconds, I have to just keep telling myself that I am armored in my uniform and there is not a drop of alcohol to be seen. There is no reason to be ashamed right now.

Just as I step up to his door, I keep telling myself to just give him the report. That's all! No dimples, no smiling, no flirting, and definitely no kissing. Pressing the chime to his quarters, I patiently wait for him to answer. And when I say ‘patiently’, I really mean that I keep looking over my shoulder as I telepathically tell him to hurry his cute ass up.

Wait! Cute ass?! What the–

Feeling the door open, the scent of something foreign yet familiar attacks my senses. Eyeing the broad man in front of me, he then moves to the side to allow a woman to pass through. Seska – she is one of the crew members I had to reprimand when I had found out her involvement in using the folding space technology from the Sikarians. She is also the same woman who had caught me walking out of Chakotay's quarters smelling of alcohol and eyes buzzing with something other than professional courtesy. Her face sours at the sight of me as her hatred for me rolls off of her in waves.

Yes well, I can bitch face with the best of them, darling. Swallowing this absurd pang of jealousy, I move to the side to let her move through. Then I go for the ultimate bitch face throw down; I carefully lift my brow as I give her a small, indulging smile. I know what this woman thinks of me, she has not been silent in her appraisal of my decision to destroy the Caretakers Array. Yet, the way she is staring me down has me thinking that her visit to Chak – I mean to the Commander’s quarters was not a professional one. There is something heavy between them, but I am secretly glad to see that it's not as sizzling as it is when **we** are together. Silently telling her that I don't need her approval, I glance back at the man pitted between us and ask, “Am I interrupting?”

“Of course,” I hear Seska mewing before he can get in a word inch-wise. Looking back at her, her damn smile infuriates me as she adds,“But we can finish later.” The bitch gives him a sultry wink before she turns and walks away from us. The gull of her! Like she can step between me and–

Okay, I need to stop that train of thought immediately. Focus!

Taking a deep breath, I roll my eyes as I look back at my first officer. “If I had known that I had interrupted the both of you, I would have not come.” Good job, Kathryn. I sound more like a Captain than I do in my head.

Giving me a smile that makes my panties literally melt – with those goddamn dimples! – he invites me to come in with a lazy flick of his wrist as he murmurs, “I'm afraid your actions would have been moot. Seska has taken a dislike to you the moment you stepped out of my quarters a few months ago.”

Quirking my eye brow up in annoyance, I quip under my breath, “Well aren't I lucky?” Buck up, Kangaroo! Come in, tell him what happened in Engineering, and leave. Folding my arms tightly along my chest, I barely step into his quarters when I hear the door close. He probably thinks I jealous, when I'm not. I mean, that's ridiculous. “Have you told her that we have done nothing to warrant her hatred towards me?” Turning to him, I take an immediate step back when I see how close he is.

Genuinely confused, he asks, “Why would that have anything to do with her hatred towards you?”

Really?! I saw his dossier on his time in the Maquis. He is no stranger when I comes to knowing a woman's body. How hard is it to know how a woman thinks? Rolling my eyes again, I let out an uncaptainly snort before answering, "Because she considers you as her own possession and I am merely trespassing on her territory.” As realization dawns on his handsome face, I quietly answer for him, “You two are lovers.” Whoa, I need to simmer down on my attitude.

Jerking his chin up, he roars, “No!” He takes a deep breath before he clarifies, “I mean, we were a long time ago. I broke it off when I realized it was creating a rift with other crew members. She was not happy about it, but I had to do what was best at the time.” He slips past me and falls on the couch in heated mess. God damn, he looks… focus Janeway! “I was in the middle of my meditation when she came here. She was rather upset that the folding technology didn't work in their favor. Naturally, I asked her what she meant and she told me the story of Tuvok secretly trading the Voyager library for the space folding technology. When they attempted to adapt it in Engineering, it had failed and they had to destroy it.”

Shit… I wanted to be the one to tell him. While I was giving myself a stupid pity party in my Ready Room, I had failed him as his Captain to keep him apprised of the situation that has sidelined Voyager from her main voyage. I should be ashamed of my behavior. “I came here to inform you what had happened.”

“I know.” I look up to see him smiling kindly at me. What the fuck happened? What happened to the man I saw through the viewscreen mean-mugging me as if I was Cardassians myself? How was I able to gain his trust so quickly? He straightens up against the cushions, bringing me out of my thoughts, and adds with a sarcastic hint, “She had a lot of not-so-nice things to say about you and, low and behold, guess who should come ringing the chime?”

Later, I'll blame my need to cover up any jealousy that he thinks he saw in my little dual with Seska, but I drag myself over and sit primly on the edge of the cushion. I shrug my shoulders and say matter-o-factly, “I never said that I was going to make everyone happy.”

He place his hand on my knee, and that longing of finding a warm, faceless body to fuck instantly melts away as the heat from his palm reaches a part of me I swore I would never feel again. Not after Justin… “She's Bjorn.” The deep lilt of his voice brings me out of my thoughts. “The atrocities that she had to witness at the hands of the Cardassians has hardened her heart into seeing only black and white. You are the enemy and you always will be, despite being forced to work together for a common goal.”

Yeah, well she's not the only one with a Cardassian horror story and she won't be the last. Never tearing my eyes away from the hand that has conformed to my knee, I sigh in contentment and defeat. I am the one here with his hand burning a whole through my uniform, yet I had promised myself over and over again that I should not be putting myself in this predicament in the first place. However, the pure joy that erupts in the shadows of my broken heart lifts me to a place of peace and happiness. How? It took Mark years to reach that point, yet it took Chakotay a few flittering moments when I was at my weakest.

Filing this feeling away so deeply in my soul that even the darkest part of her mind refuses to acknowledge it, I forcefully steer myself back to the rank I carry. “It was disturbing, to say the least, to see so many people involved, yet I should be happy to see that both Maquis and Starfleet officers working together instead of fighting with each other. We must be doing something right.” I try to sound cheerful, but it just falls flat.

His thumb begins to draw circles along the inside of my knee and I can't help what falls out of my mouth next. “I felt betrayed, that even my closest friend, my most trusted advisor, couldn't come to me. Seska, B’Elanna, and Carey, I get, but Tuvok?” The sting of pain sears through my chest and for the second time in as many hours, tears begin to prick the corners of my eyes. Drawing myself up so that we are looking at each other, I brokenly whisper, “Promise you won't go behind my back like that.” It's silly, really, yet deep down inside, I want him to make that promise to me. I have always gotten the impression that he does not make a promise that he can't keep.

Pulling his hand from my knee, he moves closer to me so that we are mere inches apart. “I will never deceive or betray you. Anger you, yes; frustrate the hell out of you, definitely; but never deceit. What you see from me is what you get.” His beautiful chocolaty brown eyes burn into mine and for the first time since this whole damn thing came crashing down on me, I am finally able to breath. I can tell that he is ready to pull away if I need him to, but I don't want him to.

On its own accord, my hand lifts up to palm his cheek and to draw my fingers along the lines of his tattoo. Following my lead, his hand cups my jaw and his thumb caresses my skin. Seconds, months, years could have passed and I would not have known. Our lips, so close that I can taste the wild hunger that pulses between us, slowly pulls closer as desire edges its sultry path along my veins.

Then, as if Heaven itself blissfully opened, the softness of his lips takes mine for one fleeting moment when—

“Seska to Chakotay.”

Instantly jumping away from each other as if she is in the room with us, Chakotay takes a deep breath before tapping his communicator, “Chakotay here. What do you need Seska?”

Hearing her maniacal grin through the receiver, she slyly says, “Oh, nothing. Just checking to see if the communicator is functioning. Don't forget what I had said. Goodnight.” That bitch! That fucking bitch! I… we… Jesus, I don't fucking know anymore!

Hearing his communicator beep at the end of that blasted transmission, he cradles his head in his hands and mumbles towards the ground, “I'm sorry.”

Sorry! Sorry! He's sorry for what? For getting involved with me? For getting caught? What? What is he so fucking sorry about?! Abruptly standing from the edge of the cushion, I begin to pace the length of his couch. Feeling as if I had been electrocuted, this urge, this primal urges that has made me wild with the simple touch of his hand now enraptures me with an anger that makes me want to burst. Anger at Chakotay for breaking through my defenses, anger at Seska for interrupting us, but more than anything… I take a deep breath… anger at myself for letting this go too far.

Stopping and turning towards the door, a memory of Mark treacherously comes to the surface of my goddamn weak mind. He had said the same thing to me – I'm sorry – when I had told him that I had cheated on him. The third time. It wrecked me inside that I had hurt him, yet he was sorry for me. I told him to fuck off and had turned to leave when he grabbed my arm and pulled me around. He told me that he was sorry that he wasn't there when I needed him the most. That I had to go to another man to escape the pain, to escape the memories that have plagued me since joining the Federation. He forgave me for every transgression because he knew that I would always go back to him. But this time, I can't.

In the darkest part of my soul, I confess that I don't want to go back to him.

Godfuckshitfuckme! Aaagghh! I'm a fucking bitch. I don't deserve him. I wish I--

“Kathryn?” The way he calls out my name… it calms my ragged breathing, it reminds me to breath.

Yet, I can't look at him. “It has been a long time since I have been intimate with someone. I think I am starting to become… desperate.” That last word leaves my mouth feeling dry and my skin feeling dirty. I am desperate, desperate for him and desperate to find someone else to distract me from wanting him.

“Kathryn…” He doesn't understand. He thinks he does, but it's not something he would find in my official Starfleet file that I know he looked at when his command codes were given to him.

Shit, I don't even know what's happening with me, let alone between us.

“I would have slept with him, just like how I would have slept with you.” Pushing him away by using the merciless truth. A common tactic I use when people get a little too close for comfort. “Cold, impersonal, and forgotten, moments after I leave the bed. I…,” my voice trails off as the image of Gath pleasing me between my legs flutters through my mind. “I wanted to…,” just as I slowly blink my eyes, he lifts his chin as his smile shows off the dimples adorning his tan skin. Chakotay?

Feeling absolutely sick to my stomach, I race to his latrine and throw up what little I had. Letting my forehead rest against the cool metal, a lone tear falls hidden down my cheeks. “I can't. Not so far from home.”

“You know,” he startles me from my perch on the floor, “having temptations and wanting to give into those same temptations, as despicable as you might find them to be, only makes you just as human as anyone else on this ship.” Hearing the soft thumps of his bare feet against the tiled floor, his earthy scent of sandalwood and fresh grass ensnares my senses before he touches my shoulder. “The first time I saw you, I hated you. I hated everything your starry bright eyes stood for. I hated the uniform you proudly wore. I hated your boorish take-charge attitude. Then, you came to me and got to know me when everyone else in the Federation would have hung me up their mighty pole. At first, I thought it was just the predicament that we were in, but then the Sky Spirits guided me to follow your lead, to stand behind the woman no one dared to. Now, I can't get you out of my mind. On every level of my being, I know it to be wrong to feel this way, but I have always been taught to never question fate, especially when it brings me a peace I thought I had lost so long ago.”

How is this possible? This can't be. It shouldn't. I need to leave, yet, my body refuses to lift itself from the floor when his soft voice filters through my defenses. “We are connected by some fate in this universe. Surely, you must be able to feel it.” The thought of some all encompassing fate pushing us together in intersecting paths sends a shiver up my spine. “I understand your need to abstain from this, to push it away with all of your might, but I beg of you to not let it dictate your life. My guide had warned me that you have lived a life full of love and heartbreak. I am here to support you, to be more than a man you were sent to capture, to be more than a man programmed to hate you.”

The warmth of his breath makes my scalp prickle as his words of support and peace mirror too closely to my own that have been scrambling along the edges of my skull. Ohh, that thought of going through this perilous journey with someone by my side is intoxicating. But I have to resist! I must! At least until I can figure this out. Barely lifting my head as my eyes slump heavily from exhaustion, I mumble, “Peace, support, fate? Are those the same words you said to Seska all those years ago? What about to the other women you clinged to when your bed felt cold from loneliness?” Cruel and unjust as they leave my salted lips, by the look of hurt that runs through his eyes, I knows that I have struck a nerve.

That in itself, gives me the strength to push myself up and away from his magnetic touch. Looking down at him from my pitiful perch, I deliver my last blow, “This, us, will create a rift so great that it will swallow us whole. Surely, you must be able to feel that as well.” Wiping my dry mouth along my sleeve, I step around his listless body and make my way towards the door.

Just before I reach out to open it, I take a deep breath in as I smothers any unseemly wrinkles in my uniform. In reality, I'm having second thoughts on leaving. What we have between us seems genuine and far too delicate to let it crash on the floor around us. Yet, when I sense his presence behind me, the darkness, that has cast a shadow in my soul since the moment I woke in a Cardassians prison, reminds me that running away from happiness is what I do best. Straightening my posture, I throw over my shoulder, “I shall see you at 0900, Commander,” as I briskly walk out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know what you think!


End file.
